Inspired Epic

Rating: 9/10 (15 November 2003)

My original review was written in 2003. I feel I should expand it to at least 10 lines since the first one was so brief and especially since this is Veteran's Day.
I am a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces but I naturally I never encountered anything like the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. When I was growing up in the 70's, calendars still had little icons denoting D-Day, VE-Day, and VJ-Day. Apparently, that's too politically incorrect for today's youths, since they are too busy being indoctrinated in school. But I digress...
The scope and breath of this film is amazing. The fact that the film stays together after so much detail is amazing in itself. I read many of the user comments and tend to agree that a lot of the dialogue is stilted, especially in the American scenes. The best part of the film for me was the scenes involving the Germans. Their acting was years ahead of its time. I love the scenes where the German officers are afraid to wake Hitler to tell him about the invasion. The only French scene I can stomach is at the beginning when Irina Demick is on the bike trying to distract the Germans from the adjacent wagon of hay, in where her comrades were hidden. Holy crap she was hot!
I thought the best American performances were from Robert Mitchum, Richard Beymer and Henry Fonda, whose role was unfortunately too brief. The best British performance was from Richard Burton. His scene at the end is great.
Although nothing can match the Normandy landing in "Saving Private Ryan", I'd take this version of D-Day anyday. While people have commented about the armchair warhawks like John Wayne, I similarly find the inclusion of Matt Damon and other Hollywood lefties in SPR just as revolting.